U of M opens center to aid fight against bedbugs

The university received nearly $91,000 dollars in state and federal money for a new resource center for businesses and individuals to how to deal with infestations.

Decades ago. bedbugs were brought under control with pesticides such as DDT, said entomologist Stephen Kells.

But the population bounced back in the early 2000s, partly because of increased air travel, he said.

"This recent pandemic, if you will, has occurred because we've had spread from different areas of the world to North America, and that has reintroduced it into these areas," Kells said.

And pesticides no longer work as well as they used to.

"They're the same species we dealt with in the past, although, because they've been exposed to some of these common insecticides repeatedly over a period of time, they have developed resistance in the population," Kells said.

The brown, oval-shaped bugs are only slightly larger than the tip of a pen and difficult to detect. Kells recommends calling a professional pest control company to deal with an infestation.